One exceptional disciplinary model is the measures taken by a seventeenth century town when the plague appears. First there is a "strict spatial partitioning" which involves the closing of the town and dividing it into quarters. There is a syndic assigned to each street who keeps the street under surveillance. This syndic locks the door to every house on his street from the outside when the quarantine begins and gives the key to his supervisor, the intendant. There is one intendant per quarter. To get supplies to each house there are wooden canals set up between the streets and houses to distribute the residents' rations of bread and wine "thus allowing each person to receive his ration without communicating with the suppliers and other residents." (314) Only the intendants, syndics and guards are allowed to be on the streets, outside of the homes. No one else is permitted to leave his home for it is a cr

The furniture and goods are raised from the ground or suspended from the air; perfume is poured around the room; after carefully sealing the windows, doors, and even the keyholes with wax the perfume is set alight. Finally the entire house is closed while the perfume is consumed...Four hours later, the residents are allowed to reenter their homes. (316)

The first step regards when discipline is first used; "to neutralize dangers, to fix useless and disturbed populations, to avoid the inconveniences of over-large assemblies." It is later asked to "increase the positive utility of individuals." For instance, the discipline of the military is no longer used in preventing war and theft but is used in the workshop enforcing regulations and preventing theft and loss. (328-329)

This constant surveillance is based on a system of "permanent registration" and reports that are passed on from the syndics to the intendants to the magistrates. At the beginning of the quarantine the name, age and sex of each individual is recorded. Every observation made-deaths, illnesses, complaints, irregularities-is recorded on these documents and reported to the entire hierarchy. The magistrates have complete control over the medical treatment of the townspeople. They select one physician whom they trust to treat the patients. No one else is permitted to visit a sick person without a written note to prevent concealing and dealing with the sick without the knowledge of the magistrates. The registration is constantly centralized with the relation of each individual to his illness and death being passed through the same hierarchy of power, which makes every decision based on it.

At first Panoptic institutions were rare occurrences, such as the plague town. They were not something that actually happened but a plan, just incase the plague appeared in a town. However Bentham's Panopticon brought the panoptic scheme to a whole new level. The plan of the plague town was for the purpose of the "immediate salvation of a threatened society," it was a desperate situation, which called for desperate measures. However in the Panopticon, the panoptic scheme is used to strengthen social forces and for economical growth. The panoptic scheme was brought to the far extreme, creating the plan for the Panopticon, a general formula stemmed from extreme measures. (326-27)

The Panopticon can be used as a "laboratory of power" instead of a "house of certainty." It can be used to conduct scientific experiments on people instead of "to constrain the convict to good behavior, the madman to calm, the worker to work, the schoolboy to application, the patient to the observation of the regulations." (323) Foucault discusses the possibility of bringing up different children "according to different systems of thought." Some children would be taught that two plus two is not four. Another group of children would be taught that th

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1966
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)